Rear placement question

[skunkiechris]

I have a large open living room, with a "floating" theater space at one end as shown above. (There is some other furniture, but it's irrelevant for this.) I have a 5.1 system, with the center speaker on top, and the front channels at each side on the extending side walls. The speakers are Infinity Modulus, attached to a Harman Kardon AVR-525. I know ideally the surrounds should be off to the sides of the couch, but because of the room shape doing so would put one about two feet further from the listener than the other. (No, I cannot shift the couch over.) My receiver only allows the delay time to be adjusted as a pair.

Sitting on the couch watching a movie puts listener ears about 3 feet off the ground. The only thing I can come up with is to place the surrounds on speaker stands, but they would have to be like 50" or higher which is awfully high...plus they would sort of be standing in the middle of nowhere if they are off to the side of the couch. I really don't want stands that high. Also, if I were to go with stands, I would prefer not to have them located a few feet off each side of the couch, since it would place them just in the middle of open space. (They would look bad, and they would probably end up being knocked into on a regular basis.)

Is it okay to put them on the sidewalls and have the distances off a couple feet, or would I be better off using tall speaker stands? Are there any other suggestions for placement with or without speaker stands? Behind the couch pointing away from the listener or something? I'm at a loss. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

EDIT: I forgot to mention ceiling mount isn't really an option, as the ceiling is at two different heights (14 & 17+ ft.) Also, I know the obvious solution would be to use a rectangular setup, but this angle is the only accepted positioning. (WAF)

 

[Az B]

Not being able to adjust the distance seperately is a problem.

I would tackle this one of three ways:

Mount the speakers on the walls and plan on upgrading to a different reciever soon, one that will allow the rear distances to be set seperately.

Mount the speakers from the ceiling.

Start over on the room. I would move the screen over to the east wall with the sofa to west wall. You'll need some sound absorbing material on the north wall to offset the wide open spaces to the south.

Hopefully one of these ideas is something you can use. Good luck!

 

[Karp]

It looks to me that if you can't mount on the ceiling, and you can't move the furniture, that stands are your only option. Although they are best placed slightly behind and slightly higher than ear level, I don't think that you have to place them on stands that tall to still get surround effects.
I would get a pair of adjustable-height stands and play around with positioning till it sounds best to you.

 

[plhart]

I would suggest mounting your right surround at 5.5 -6 feet height right where the window ends and the wall begins. Fire it at an almost 90 degree angle to the wall which should put the on-axis of this speaker about 3 feet behind the center of the couch.

Place the left surround at the apex of the two walls which appear to form an approximate 160 degree angle. Aim it also so that the on axis would appear to intersect at 3 feet behind the center of the couch. (Also 5.5-6 feet high.)

Rotate these two speakers toward or away from the centerline of the couch to see which position gives the best immersion effect.

 

[skunkiechris]

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions!!!

That last one sounds perfect...I was hoping for something involving unusual placement and/or reflections that I don't know enough about this stuff to figure out on my own.

Just to make sure I'm understanding the suggestion correctly, you are suggesting to do something like this:

And then mess around with the exact angles until it sounds the best, correct?

Thanks again!!

 

[plhart]

You've drawn it correctly. Give it a try. The Modulus bases will give a some latitude in swiveling the speakers both horizontally and vertically.